Whitgift Remembers WWI

Whitgiftians in WWI

This page commemorates the Old Whitgiftians who died in WWI. A list of names of the 251 men who attended the School, but were sadly lost in the conflict, can be found at the bottom of this page. A full album of pictures of these men can be found by clicking here.

Like many public schools, Whitgift had a Cadet Corps that dated back to 1874. It was attached to the 1st Volunteer Battalion, Queen’s Regiment and had an Officer’s Training Corps from 1908. By the time war was declared, numerous OWs had joined Territorial Army units, others volunteering for Kitchener’s New Army.

The School’s Book of Remembrance indicates that around 1,400 boys and teaching staff saw active service. More than 330 received decorations or mentions and 251 Old Whitgiftians laid down their lives. Headmaster Samuel Andrew would read out, in Big School, each Wednesday morning, the names of those who had given their lives or suffered severe, life-changing injuries; this must have been a huge burden on him as he would recall the boys he had taught: Prefects, Captains, many who had visited him on holiday from their universities and colleges and those OWs he had met at various school events, all on happier occasions. As weeks came and went, the lists read would grow ever longer.

No fewer than 92 Military Crosses (M.C.), five Distinguished Flying Crosses (D.F.C.), one Air Force Cross (A.F.C.), six Distinguished Conduct Medals (D.C.M.), one Distinguished Service Medal (D.S.M.), five Military Medals (M.M.), one Distinguished Service Order (D.S.O.) were awarded as well as a number of foreign orders and decorations, including ten French Croix de Guerre and the Italian Silver Medal for Valour, which was received by Sir Arthur Tedder. Many OWs were mentioned in dispatches, some more than once, while one, George Walter Barber, was mentioned six times.

Of the total 251 Whitgiftians who died in the conflict, many were still students at the School at the outbreak of the war. A photograph of Founder’s Day Parade from March 1914 shows four officers leading – of these, three lost their lives in WWI – one in 1915, one in 1916 and one in 1918. The fourth in the photograph was killed in 1942, having previously served as a Captain in WWI, winning an MC. Of the 1913-14 1st XV, nine of their players were killed in the war.

Amongst those killed in the war were eight pairs of brothers from the Buckworth, Carter, Cooper, Cowlin, Frisch, Fuller, Warner and Williams families. The loss of the Coldwells family was particularly tragic as three out of four of their sons died in the war.

The youngest Whitgiftian to die in the conflict was Midshipman Harold Stuart Pearce Brabner. Only 16 years old, he went down with the ship Don Arturo, on 17 June, 1917, on his first voyage returning from Africa.

By July of 1918, Headmaster Samuel Andrew was already considering the establishment of a small committee to discuss the form a War Memorial should take. Money was raised to build a memorial, a column surmounted by the Whitgift cross upon a two-platform base erected on the lawn in front of the Tower; carved in Hopton Wood Stone, designed and constructed by Croydon funeral directors Ebbutt’s and unveiled on Saturday 11 March 1922 at 3.30pm by Major-General Sir J.R. Longley, KCMG, CBE. The Major-General then unveiled a memorial panel in Big School; a set of parchments beautifully illuminated in with gold leaf and bearing the names of the fallen in black calligraphic hand.